Photos Posted Below the FoldThe Jerusalem Post caught another fauxtography scam out of the mideast this week. It appears that Hamas legislators have staged fake power outages to illustrate how oppressed they are for the benefit of journalists. The Journalists were treated to a photo op of the Hamas legislators sitting in their halls of power surrounded by burning candles in rooms with curtains drawn. The scene was set to show how they have had their power cut by the eeeevil Jews. Only problem is, midday sunlight can clearly be seen against the curtains. So, the candles were unnecessary. All they had to do was open the curtains and they would be able to see just fine. Obviously Reuters (and others) allowed Hamas to manipulate the facts. But that didn’t seem to bother any of these so-called journalists who were quite happy to go along.

And more fun with Big Media propagandists: During a soi-disant Israeli “power cut”, Palestinians are forced to hold a parliamentary session by candlelight. Alas, even with the curtains drawn, the blazing sunlight keeps peeping through.

These photographs were taken by Mohammed Salem of Reuters and Hatem Moussa of the Associated Press. If neither of these organizations wish to comment, perhaps some of the ethics panjandrums at America’s journalism schools would like to weigh in.

Here are the photos along with the misleading tag lines that Reuters tagged onto them. You can clearly see the sunlight behind the curtains:

Palestinian lawmakers attend a parliament session in candlelight during a power cut in Gaza January 22, 2008. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

Palestinian lawmakers attend a parliament session in candlelight during a power cut in Gaza January 22, 2008. Israel agreed to allow some fuel, medicine and food into the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Tuesday, at least temporarily easing a blockade that has plunged much of the territory into darkness and sparked international protests. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem (GAZA)

Palestinian lawmakers attend a parliament session in candlelight during a power cut in Gaza January 22, 2008. Israel agreed to allow some fuel, medicine and food into the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Tuesday, at least temporarily easing a blockade that has plunged much of the territory into darkness and sparked international protests. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem (GAZA)

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is the power of a FAKE picture from “Palestinian” aggressors playing the “victim” cloth?
How can any words undue the influence their criminal industry has already done???

Some samples:

The infamous FAKE Video of Muhammad Al Dura… that was actually murdered by… Arab “Palestinian” Muslims… (well, it wouldn’t be the first boy murdered by them and blamed on Israel… another (at least known one) is 2 boys in a cave in the Rafah region).
But the power of the pictures is stronger than the truth.
Who will see Israel’s true humane image after this immense damage?

PMW reported yesterday that Palestinian Authority
(PA) TV has been broadcasting a falsified video clip of the
events on the Gaza beach on Friday in an attempt to blame Israel
for the deaths. [Yesterday’s bulletin is reprinted below.]

In the new falsification, an unrelated video clip
of an Israeli missile boat was edited into news footage to make
it appear as if the Israeli boat intentionally fired on civilians.
This is the same technique that PA TV used after Muhammad Al-Dura
was killed in a cross fire in the Gaza Strip in 2000. Subsequent
analysis of that incident has shown that Palestinian fire likely
killed the boy. But the PA TV propaganda clip inserted footage
of an Israeli soldier from a completely different incident to
make it look as if a soldier deliberately aimed at and shot
Al-Dura. That doctored video clip was broadcast hundreds of
times on PA TV.

Palestinian Authority TV has been
repeatedly broadcasting a falsified video clip of the events
surrounding the deaths of seven family members on the Gaza beach on
Friday. In an attempt to blame Israel’s navy for the deaths, PA TV
took unrelated video of an Israeli missile boat firing at Gaza
earlier in the day and edited them into the scenes, creating the
impression Israeli responsibility.

The following is the time
frame of the PA TV editing and falsification:

00:00-0:32
seconds: PATV clip introduces the scene by showing an
Israeli missile boat firing on the Gaza coast. Audio of ambulance
siren is added to visual to create false impression that boat was
shooting at same time as ambulances were present.

0:32-1:05
seconds: Scene switches directly to the victims, creating
a false connection between the events.

1:05-1:09
seconds: PA TV returns to the naval vessel showing sailor
with binoculars looking at shore, again creating the false
impression he is observing the evacuation.

1:09-2:00
seconds: The evacuation scene continues ending with the
word “Why” on the screen only in English, indicating a foreign
target audience, possibly media.

The video of the Israeli navy was
unrelated to the deaths, having been filmed earlier in the day and
had already released to the media and to the internet by the Israeli
army at 4:00 PM, an hour prior to the deaths.

Comment: It should be noted that not
only is the video falsified, but the beach scene clearly backs the
Israeli contention that the deaths were not caused by an Israeli
shell. Any Israeli shell would have left a giant crater and spread
sand over the entire area, as well as on the victims. There is no
crater and the beach scene is not disturbed in a way that indicates
an Israeli shell could have landed nearby.

JENIN, -: A Palestinian woman looks at a militant from the Islamic Jihad as he holds his weapon after an Israeli military incursion in the northern West Bank city of Jenin 01 June 2006. Two soldiers were injured in Jenin, one lightly and the other lightly to moderately, from an explosive charge that was detonated against an IDF jeep according to Israeli radio reports. SAIF DAHLAH/AFP/Getty Images

After explaining why he believes the gunman was hamming it up for the camera, Zoran Bozicevic, a National Post associate photo editor with combat photography experience discusses an eye-opening problem for photo editors and readers:

With the rise of digital photography, barriers to entry fell in the profession: Anyone could call himself a photojournalist, pick up a camera, and e-mail photos to editors around the world. The cost-cutting media increasingly relies on these cheap, sometimes unscrupulous, local stringers. In some cases, they flout professional objectivity, and take sides in the conflict they cover. In other cases, they stage pictures to keep employers happy. Or worse, they manipulate digital pictures after the fact, turning a photo into a work of fiction.